Don Giovanni (1787)
Press reviews
Financial Times 20 September 2004
It has a bigger cast, a quarter of the humour and a tiny fraction of the inspiration. Throughout Gazzaniga's Don Giovanni you cannot help making comparisons with another opera of the same name, written in the same year. And of course Mozart wins hands-down. The only possible point in Gazzaniga's favour is the way he pours a near-identical plot into a smaller pot and even then, his one-acter feels longer than Mozart. None of this has deterred Bampton Classical Opera from disinterring Gazzaniga's dramma giocoso. The Oxfordshire company visited London last week to show off its summer staging.
Giuseppe Gazzaniga (1743-1818) is the poor man's classicist. Educated in Venice and Naples, he followed all the rules of late eighteenth century buffa style, without the heart of Paisiello or the wit of Cimarosa. the only value in hearing his work is to remind ourselves just how huge the gap is between Mozart and his contemporaries. In Gazzaniga's version, Donna Anna barely registers, Don Ottavio is a blank sheet and you end up wishing more had been made of minor characters like Donna Ximena, ignored by Da Ponte and Mozart but treated here to some winsome music.
The one blot on Bampton's English language production was its decision to preface each half with instrumental music by Gluck: it may have helped pass off Don Giovanni as an evening-filling work, but it's dishonest to do so. Jeremy Gray's modern dress staging was tight but effortful, profiling the seducer (Daniel Norman) as a shaven-headed clubber. Rebecca Bottone's Maturina caught the ear, Cheryl Enever's Ximena the eye, but the most polished performance came from the orchestra.
Andrew Clark
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Opera magazine November 2004
Giuseppe Gazzaniga's one-act dramma giocoso has had a surprising number of productions and recordings since the 1974 publication of Stefan Kunze's new edition. First performed in Venice in 1787, eight months before Mozart's and Da Ponte's version in Prague, Gazzaniga's opera has a plot that, in Giovanni Bertati's libretto, is almost identical to Da Ponte's. The main differences are that Donna Anna goes into a convent striaght after the murder of the Commendatore, and that there are two subsidiary characters, Donna Ximena, an amorous lady to add to Giovanni's catalogue, and Lanterna, a comic manservant who features prominently in the supper scene.
The opera was sung in a translation by Gilly French and Jeremy Gray, the artistic directors of Bampton opera, and had already been performed in August at Westonbirt School in Gloucestershire. Even in the sometimes difficult acoustics of St John's the words came across clearly - it helps, of course, when the story is so familiar. Daniel Norman was a suave, tenor Giovanni. The costumes were vaguely 1970s, Giovanni in a white suit, Pasquariello (Mark Saberton), the Leporello character, in a black shirt and braces. His catalogue aria, sung with the aid of a plastic globe, develops into a duet with Donna Elvira (Sarah Redgwick), who becomes very much the leading lady; one of the highlights of the evening was her duet with Maturina, the Zerlina figure, when they exchange insults, having been brought together by Giovanni, each supposing the other to be a madwoman in pursuit of him. Rebecca Bottone as Maturina also did well in her seduction aria - in this case it is she who goes after Giovanni. Apart from a couple of slightly piercing high notes, this was a performance of considerable confidence. Nicholas Merryweather doubled as the Commendatore and Biagio (i.e. Masetto). His big aria, the equivalent of 'Ho capito', brought the most effective singing of the evening. Huw Rhys-Evans made Ottavio a positive character. Helen Semple was a Donna Anna obviously not quite sure which she regretted most, her father's death or the fact that Giovanni escaped from her. Cheryl Enever as Ximena and Christopher Bowen as Lanterna made the most of their brief contributions.
Jason Lai led a spirited performance , with the London Mozart Players producing a fine sound in the suites from Gluck's incidental music for Don Juan which served as curtain-raisers. The best of Gazzaniga's opera comes in the scenes that are furthest from Mozart's version: the two-soprano duet; the drinking trio for Giovanni and his servants in which they toast Venice, and then the jolly finale, after the Stone Guest has done his work. Gazzaniga composed more than 50 other operas, but it is his fate to be for ever associated with this one - and all because Da Ponte lifted most of Bertati's libretto for his own, admittedly lofty purpose.
Patrick O'Connor
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Opera Japonica website, October 2004
A more obscure rendering of the story of Don Giovanni, by Giuseppe Gazzaniga, provided a contrast of sorts when Bampton Classical Opera paid their annual visit to St John’s, Smith Square. Written in 1787, the same year as Mozart’s opera, the work is full of startling parallels with the better-known work. At the beginning and at various points throughout, Giovanni Bertati’s libretto mirrors da Ponte’s almost line for line; there has been much speculation that da Ponte may have had sight of Bertati’s libretto at some point.
Musically there are also parallels. The entrance of the peasants for their wedding party seems only too familiar, as does the voice of the Commendatore’s statue and the wind band during the supper scene. Nevertheless, this opera has nothing even approaching the complexity or depth of Mozart’s, and its running time (less than two hours, including an interval) is testament to the fact that Gazzaniga and Bertati deal with a far simpler plot.
Other than Don Giovanni himself, the voice types are much the same as for the Mozart opera. The Don is a tenor, and was sung here by Daniel Norman, who was possibly not as vocally charismatic as one might have hoped. A strong collection of bright-voiced young sopranos made up the Don’s lovers and conquests; Sarah Redgwick was secure in Donna Elvira’s demanding arias, while Rebecca Bottone displayed some dazzling vocal acrobatics as Maturina, the Zerlina character. Donna Anna - a small role - was ably sung by Helen Semple, and Cheryl Enever was sweet-toned in the ‘additional’ role of Donna Ximena. Mark Saberton sang securely and supplied most of the laughs as Pasquariello (a k a Leporello) while Nicholas Merryweather proved perfectly capable of doubling as Biagio (a k a Masetto) and the Commendatore.
As the piece lacks an overture, some music from Gluck’s ballet, Don Juan, was used at the start of each act. The style was slightly incongruous but I suspect it would have been stranger without it. Conductor Jason Lai paced the performance well. The lasting impression was that this is a somewhat simplistic work, very well performed.
Ruth Elleson
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Musical Opinion November 2004
Giuseppe Gazzaniga's Don Giovanni is an intriguing musicological curiosity, a kind of trailer to the greater opera that Mozart created from the same source material. It was an imaginative choice for Bampton Classical Opera whose production was first seen at Westonbirt School in Gloucestershire, before being staged at St John's, Smith Square, on 16 September.
Composed in one act, it is a more compact score that Mozart's, which it predated by eight months, but substantially the same in its dramaturgical structure. The libretto by Giovanni Bertati, a frequent collaborator of Gazzaniga's, incorporates Giovanni's attack on Anna and the murder of her father, after which she enters a convent; the arrival of Elvira, followed by another of the Don's conquests, Ximena, and the eruption of the wedding party, bride and groom here named Maturina and Biagio. At this half-way point it moves to the Commendatore's mausoleum which is visited by the abandoned Ottavio; then comes the invitation to supper, a digression in which Giovanni and his servant Pasquariello, a name harking back to the story's commedia dell'arte origins, sing the praises of food, wine and the beauties of Venice, before the arrival of the Stone Guest and Giovanni's dispatch to Hell.
Gazzaniga's music has pace, vitality and atmosphere and though it lacks the character development at which Mozart excelled, it propels the action along via effective solos and ensembles, a tenor Giovanni lending brightness to the vocal palette, with a small chorus and an orchestra of strings, oboe, horn and trumpet.
There is an interesting twist to Pasquariello's catalogue aria, delivered with zest by the baritone Mark Saberton, in that Elvira joins in to turn it into a lively duet. She is the principal female character and Sarah Redgwick infused her singing with fiery personality. She was strongly partnered in a jealousy duet with Maturina, each accusing the other of madness, byt the personable Rebecca Bottone, who was equally striking in the aria in which she turns the table on the Don by pursuing him. She exudes sexual allure and projected notes and words clearly. Nicholas Merryweather did double duty playing both the offended Biagio, whose aria of outrage he delivered powerfully, and the avenging Commendatore. Daniel Norman sang Giovanni with demonic energy, while Huw Rhys-Evans in the other role of Ottavio, provided vocal contrast with his smooth, measured tones. Helen Semple's Anna, Cheryl Enever's Ximena and Christopher Bowen as the servant Lanterna made positive contributions.
In the absence of scenery the production by Jeremy Gray, who was also responsible with Gilly French for the English translation, relied on lighting effects, though in the second half the top level of the stage was dominated by the Commendatore's mausoleum. The costumes were late 20th-century.
The conductor, Jason Lai, captured the spirit of the piece with his small band of London Mozart Players, who also gave polished accounts of extracts from Gluck's Don Juan ballet played as short overtures to the two parts.
Margaret Davies
